


Body in Motion

by panchostokes (badwolfrun)



Series: Make it Worse [9]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Angst, Episode: s06e01 Bodies in Motion, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nick Stokes Whump, Post Grave Danger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29906547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes
Summary: Try as he might, while moving on Nick finds there's some things that just won't let him go, trapping him in a dizzying vortex but even in the darkness, there's still rays of light that keep him from falling below ground.
Relationships: Gil Grissom & Nick Stokes, Warrick Brown & Nick Stokes
Series: Make it Worse [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978048
Comments: 10
Kudos: 10





	Body in Motion

**Author's Note:**

> During my latest rewatch I wondered why Nick just up and left after his case was finished, until we see him in the locker room, so here's my imagining of what might have happened during that time. With some added suffering, as per my MO.

He’s missed this, the high coming off of solving a case.

The high coming off of being  _ alive. _

The high soaring far above ground.

Though this case was a bit of a head scratcher, and he was surprised—although, not really given that it did come out of Grissom’s mouth—that the theory they ran with, a “flying car,” was not just some wild fantastical hypothesis, but the actual truth of an explosion in a trailer park.

That’s going to be interesting explaining in court.

After their final booking of the suspect, the CSIs headed back to the lab to move on.

“Alright, what’s next, boss?” Nick asks, clapping his hands together and rubbing his palms with eagerness. 

“Nothing, Nick. Go home,” Grissom shrugs with a small smile.

“I hear Sara and Greg were unwrapping their ‘car condom’—” Nick offers with a smirk at the rather colorful language that has been thrown around recently—he even thinks back to how he even heard Grissom proclaim “I’m not a pervert” earlier over the radio to Catherine. He stops and gestures his thumb to the garage, walking backwards and nearly bumping into a passing technician.

“They can handle it,” Grissom holds up a hand, motioning Nick to follow him again.

“How about Rick and Cath?”

“You know what they say about too many cooks in the kitchen.”

Nick chuckles humorlessly, his jaw gaping open in half-shock. He senses he’s either about to get stuck with some menial,  _ safe  _ task or again told to go home.

”I can go help out Archie in the lab?” Nick pushes the door ajar, observing Archie sitting in front of the computers with a large pair of sound-cancelling headphones and listening intently to a piece of evidence.

“No,” Grissom snaps around quickly, his voice sharp but his face softens when he sees the worry on Nick’s face. “No, I need you to, uh…Get some rest. It’s only your first week back, after all.”

“In the  _ field,”  _ Nick clarifies, and suddenly he feels like he did five years ago, chasing after his boss and bitching to him about not being treated like the capable CSI that he is. “Grissom—”

Grissom’s pager goes off. 

“Sorry, Nick, gotta go. And so you do you. I’ll see you later tonight,” Grissom eyes Nick over the rim of his glasses and departs without another word.

Nick opens his mouth as if to say something, but closes it in a resigned frown.

He knows he shouldn’t push his luck, having noticed that Grissom has him tethered to his side which isn’t as bad as it seems. Beyond a rather...emotional moment during the...incident that he already can’t seem to get an escape from even from his job—constantly looking over his shoulder when he strays too far from the police tape, embarrassing reactions to a harmless insect crawling up his arm, the newfound sensitivity as all of the horrors of their job just seem a little more...real. Unbearable than before, and even though he’s been victimized and traumatized already, this time is just...different—just as Grissom is different in his mentoring. More attentive. More available. 

Though one thing that hasn’t changed, is leaving him in the dark and not telling him why he’s being held back.

Again.

Still, he is happy just to be at work again. To be with the team, the  _ whole  _ team, who should have never been split in the first place. 

Work is a great distraction to keep him from thinking of how things may have gone differently, how maybe day shift would have gotten stuck with the case, or how he may have been paired with somebody who wouldn’t leave him in an alleyway unattended and easy to snatch.

His phone rings, the caller ID is blocked, but he knows who it is, and he ignores it.

He tries to hold off going immediately, knowing that his house has been anything but a home to him since he was sentenced to a pseudo-house arrest while his body and mind healed, his only escape being meetings with a counselor with whom he allowed the bare minimum access to the inner workings of his mind; he’s played these games before and knows the answers that got him back to the lab that he was now being ushered out of, all for what? So they didn’t have to pay him overtime?

He has half a mind to march into Ecklie’s office and offer to work for free. 

He sighs as he settles in his car, one hand twisting the keys and the car doesn’t start immediately—why didn’t he roll his window’s down earlier—because someone might carjack you, Stokes, you dumbass—he bites down on his lower lip to hold back the rapid bursts of air rising out of his lungs through his throat— _ breathe quick— _ his fingers tremble and he  _ hates  _ it, hates the small whimper that escapes his lips as he just pleads for his car to start—he squeezes his eyes and he’s in darkness, a fading green light— _ breathe slow _ —he has time to breathe, air to breathe, the fan is on and it wafts gently against his face but then—a flash, a blinding light erupts just as his car’s engine finally roars into a gentle purr—

_ Anyway you like, you’re going to die here. _

“Okay,” he breathes, and immediately rolls down the windows as the car across from him pulls out of its parking spot. He prays that they didn’t see what just happened.

He goes to the gym, works out his nerves. Goes to the diner with the cheapest steak and eggs that does nothing but further disturb his nauseous stomach. Goes to the grocery store, for fresh ingredients intended for a home-cooked meal but ends up picking up microwave dinners and a cart full of junk food that requires no preparation and tastes better, anyway. If he’s going to be stuck up all day watching television because he can’t sleep, might as well have some popcorn to go with it.

He goes on a drive with no destination, the windows down and the air limitless. He props his elbow on the windowsill before letting his arm fall out altogether, his hand surfing the invisible waves of air beyond the constraints of the vehicle.

He may be contained in his car, but he’s not  _ confined.  _

Vegas during the day may not be  _ as  _ interesting as it is at night, but he’s learned to appreciate the sunlight no matter what it shines upon, so long as it’s  _ there. _

He winds up in one of the worst parts of town, driving past a sectioned off perimeter where Catherine and Warrick are arm-in-arm with the assumed killer for the case they were assigned.

And that’s when he sees  _ him,  _ the officer reading the man his rights.

_ That’s  _ why Grissom didn’t want him working with Catherine and Warrick.

The swirling in his stomach returns, accompanied by a weird lagging whiplash when he turns his head away, but he just ends up seeing the scene in his mirror anyway. 

He can’t keep doing this. This can’t keep happening. He needs to move on. He can’t keep letting these little reminders of what happened eat him alive from the inside—his whole  _ job  _ is one whole reminder, he’s not going to be able to do it if he keeps getting these adverse reactions to anything that remotely reminds him of the—

“—abduction...Nick?”

“Hmm?” Nick blinks, and he’s in Grissom’s office, hands clenched under the chair, oddly leaning to the side, his head tilted.

“I need you to process these fibers tied to a cold case abduction,” Grissom stares at him over the rim of his glasses yet again. 

“Fibers. Yeah. Sure, I-I can do that.”

HIs speech is slow, his breathing deliberate. He’s almost goofily smiling from the weird sense of vertigo, like he’s in some sort of liminal space. A dream.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he squeaks out. He clears his throat.

“I...heard you stopped by the police department earlier.” 

Nick winces. He was hoping he could avoid this.

“Brass told me,” Grissom adds quickly, holding an innocent hand up in the air.

“Yeah, I was...just...following up on somethin’.”

Brass had told him in the hospital that Officer Michaels would be tied to a desk with a ball and chain for the rest of his life. Nick had shrugged that off, saying that it wasn’t his fault. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, just as Nick was. 

He wasn’t just lying to Brass, he was lying to himself.

After hours of non-sleep, he had figured he’d swing by the department, congratulate the newly transferred Detective Curtis who he had only really met in passing, and follow up with Vega on one of their ongoing cases. 

Really, he was just restless, and wanted to just move around, having grown tired of lazing around his house, specifically laying on his bed or couch had given him a sense of deja vu, he would often jump up when his feet fell asleep just to make sure they still work.

And he had walked these halls countless times since... _ it  _ happened and while he always kept his senses sharp, he knew there would be a time he wouldn’t be able to avoid encountering the officer who he found in quite a...disgruntled state, coming in from the back entrance that he had only seen officers come in through after a smoke break, but Michaels doesn’t smoke. 

Seems like he does drink, though.

Nick tried to get out of his line of vision, popped his collar, turned his head, even contemplated snatching another uni’s hat but it was too late, he had nearly fallen into the wall because he lost his balance as if he were drunk himself, too, and his stumble attracted attention—

“You! You got some real nerve, Stokes…” Michaels stumbled, belching, rolling up his sleeves and splitting his shirt apart. 

“I’m sorry?”

“All I want’d do...was...get some fresh air, that’s-that’s all, that’s not a  _ crime,”  _ Michaels loudly proclaimed. “And-and I tried to tell ya I was sorry,  _ so—many—goddamn—times!”  _

“Whoa, whoa, easy now, DA,” Nick held up his hands, but Michaels was charging at him like a raging bull.

“I am gettin’ sick of everybody treating me like I’m a piece of shit,” Michaels growled.

“Little help here, fellas!” Nick called out, but perhaps his words were lost to the usual chaos of the department, or perhaps they were on Michaels’ side, but nobody came right away.

Michaels got his hands on Nick and pressed him against the wall, shaking him.

“FORGIVE ME! Just! Fuckin’ forgive me already, will ya!” 

Nick’s head bounced off the wall, he tried to put his hands up to defend himself but he was off equilibrium, his hand had meant to grab Michael’s shoulder but slapped the side of his head instead—

“It wasn’t my fault!” Michaels screamed at him, jostling Nick again, harder—he pulled up his own hand to cup around Nick’s head, tugged his hair, Nick could smell the alcohol on his breath and felt hot spit fling onto his face. 

“Stop…” Nick croaked as he felt his head fall back again, and again, and again against the box—no, the  _ wall _ ,  _ Nick _ —and he felt like he was getting sick, the ceiling lights spun wildly to his frozen eyes that were trying to focus on the assaulting blur in front of him. He gave up any attempt to move, just stayed still because  _ they won’t bite as much  _ and prayed it would all be over soon.

“How’s your head?” Grissom asks softly. Uncharacteristically. Nick hates it almost as much as he hates Michaels. 

“Shoulda seen the other guy,” Nick tries to joke with a smile, remembering how Michaels threw up on him, how Brass screamed, _ “that’s the last time you throw up on my dime, dipshit!”  _

He looks down, he had changed into a spare shirt he had in his locker but still feels the steaming bile. Still feels the confused terror. 

“Do you need to go to the hospital? You might have a concussion.”

Still feels the ant bites. 

“It’s...It’s never going to be over, is it?” Nick asks with a strangled voice, scratching his wrists pulsing with the phantom pustules.

Grissom doesn’t have an answer for him.

Just the assignment of fiber analysis, which he’s more than happy to do. He garbs up in a lab coat and finds an empty room to work in. He occasionally pauses to talk shop with fellow CSIs and lab technicians, stretch his legs to trips to the break room for snacks and refreshments, but otherwise his nose is down a microscope staring at braided threads that don’t remind him of anything particular at all, except perhaps the taut ropes he would have to climb in gym class, the long ginger hair of his crush in middle school, or in this case—

“Carpet fibers,” Nick gestures to the unspoken question on the tip of Warrick’s tongue. 

“Thought you’d be out collectin’ them, not processing them,” Warrick pats his friend on the back as he rounds the counter and leans onto the surface, his hands clasped in front of him, one covering the other.

“Figured I’d take it easy today,” Nick mumbles.

“That’s a first,” Warrick snorts, but his humor immediately vanishes as his eyes darken, his voice lowers, “You good?”

“Yeah, yeah just...a little...tired is all,” Nick lifts his head from the microscope, squeezing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, furthering distorting his vision when it returns after an eruption of inverted stars. 

But when it clears up, he notices something shiny on Warrick’s finger, that acts as the perfect distraction from the tilting room around him.

“Is that a?” he grins, gesturing a finger towards Warrick’s hand.

“Oh, yeah. I, uh, sealed the deal with Tina the other night.”

“She said ‘yes?’”

“Is that so surprising?” Warrick asked with a crooked smile.

“Just seems so…”

“Sudden? Yeah, it was. Went to one of those flashy wedding chapels, had a good time. I just...couldn’t stand not bein’ you know,  _ with  _ her one minute longer.”

“So romantic,” Nick flutters his eyelashes with a hand on his chest.

“Ah, shut your mouth, we all know you’re a hopeless romantic yourself.”

“And a  _ traditional  _ one, at that. When I get married—”

“—There’s not going to be a chapel big enough to hold your huge ass family, let alone your brides’—”

“It is going to be a nice,  _ formal  _ event, planned to perfection, and have everybody I love there…”

“And have a best man,” he adds in a cough into a closed fist. 

“What was that?” Warrick asks, but Nick knows he heard him.

“Nicky, look…” Warrick sighs when Nick goes back to his microscope. He walks around, leans over Nick’s shoulder. 

“You’ll  _ always  _ be my best man. My best friend, and honestly if it weren’t for you...this...wouldn’t have happened.”

Nick lifts his head up again, his eyes shining. 

“You made me the happiest man on Earth, even if you don’t know exactly why,” Warrick solemnly tells him, hugging him close with a hand on his shoulder. 

Nick swallows hard and he does know why. Warrick doesn’t need to say it out loud for him to know,  _ life is so short.  _

If he had a girlfriend, or hell, even a boyfriend or any sort of partner, he would have gotten married to them, too. 

“Shucks, Rick,” Nick wipes his nose with the back of his hand, his voice as watery as his eyes. “You didn’t even hafta get on bended knee for me to say ‘yes!’” 

Warrick lets go of Nick, whose mock-crying turns into contagious laughter while he playfully jabs Warrick in the arm. 

“You little shit,” Warrick chuckles as he pats Nick on the back. “This is exactly why you weren’t invited to the wedding.”

“Hey, seriously, bro,” Nick calls when Warrick makes his leave. “I’m really happy for you. Congrats.”

“Thanks, Nicky. You’re taking it far better than Cath did,” Warrick baits him but at the same time, signals that he doesn’t want to elaborate—Nick files the statement away for a later questioning.

“We should go out somewhere after shift!” Nick spins around, a little too fast, and he has to take a quick breath before he falls over.

Maybe he is concussed after all, he thinks as he blinks hard and long.

“Nowhere crazy,” Warrick holds up a hand and with his face scrunched in slight concern towards Nick. 

“How about the Pepper Mill?”

“Did I hear the Pepper Mill?” Greg interrupts, he and Sara peek their heads through the doorframe. 

“Guess it’s decided then,” Warrick shakes his head with a smile.

“What’s the occasion?” Sara asks.

“Our boy over here got himself married,” Nick grabs onto both of Warrick’s shoulder and gently shakes him—not as hard as he had been shaken, himself.

“Married?” Sara’s face lights up like a tree, Greg offers an extended hand that Warrick shakes vigorously. “Oh my God! That’s-that’s great!” 

Sara goes in for a hug and Nick retreats, happy to be dizzy from the sheer joy and hoping the feeling doesn’t fade, and it doesn’t for the rest of his shift, his smile only widening when he changes out of his work clothes and shoes in the locker room, walking into Warrick and Catherine doing the same.

Nick begins his line of questioning then, with the basic questions about Tina because though he’s met her in passing and heard Warrick regale tales of their escapades on their wild date nights in Sin City—which Nick tries not to think about the similarities to the last time Warrick talked about Tina in the locker room, and he’s guessing Warrick wasn’t, either. 

Warrick is fortunately saved from the onslaught of domestic questions asked by his friend— _ “Can she cook, is she a good cook?”  _ which indicates to Warrick where Nick’s priorities really lie and he loves him for it.

Nick makes the offer, Catherine turns down to tend to Lindsey, and Grissom doesn’t give an answer right away.

“So?” Nick asks, looking up at his mentor with a slightly dazed look on his face, noticing how Grissom seems to be splitting, mirrored on either side of the doorway.

“I got one more thing to do,” Grissom holds up a finger and takes his leave. Nick turns back to grin at Warrick— _ can you believe we got him to come with? _ And shakes his head when Warrick grins back, “Don’t, just don’t.”

“Alright man, just one more question…” Nick starts as they head for their cars. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, man,” Warrick sighs while Nick laughs.

“This is a serious one...what happened with you and Catherine?” Nick asks with an arm slung around Warrick’s shoulder, asking in a hushed whisper.

“Oh, that...it’s just...well, don’t worry about it, man.” 

“No, really, c’mon, tell me,” Nick goes to pat Warrick’s chest, but his hand falls down, and he nearly takes them both down to the ground.

“Whoa, there, Tex. You’re walking like a newborn deer. You okay?” 

“Fine. You and Cath?” 

“I think she, uh...Well, I think she had some sort of…”

Nick starts getting his keys out and drops them, and while he crouches down to pick them up, he gestures for Warrick to continue but when his hand touches the ground, so does his face as he falls forward in a half-somersault. 

“Alright, you’re cut off,” Warrick laughs as he packs Nick into the passenger’s seat of his SUV, snatching his keys in the process. 

“We ain’t even there yet!” Nick whines. 

“Seems like you already started the party without me,” Warrick points out, half-jokingly and half-seriously bringing up his handheld breathalyzer from his kit to Nick’s face. Nick swats at it, but it gives Warrick a negative result anyway. 

They get to the Pepper Mill and Nick seemingly returns to normal, though he sure as hell won’t tell anybody about how the neon-lit restaurant has turned into a carousel and practically turns into a child eager to go for a spin on one, non-stop blabbering about just how  _ awesome  _ this place is, how the food is just so appetizing, how he’s happy that they got nearly everybody in their little family all together in one place.

“Alright, now I’m thinking we should get you something to drink to kick you down a notch,” Warrick laughs as Greg falls into a fit of giggles in his own drink. 

“We gotta get your body in motion, dude, c’mon! We’re alive, you’re married, let’s celebrate!” 

“We pulled someone else outta that box, I’m tellin ya man,” Warrick shakes his head with a knowing smile while Nick eagerly waves for Grissom and Sara—only vaguely surprised that they showed up together, filing the unspoken question in the same box that he contains his wonder if Grissom is hiding something from him.

And for once, the words Warrick speaks as a reminder, directly referencing what happened, doesn’t seem to bother him at all. 


End file.
